Timing is everything........

I have written before about how much change practitioners can learn from other life activities. Recently, this has been crystallised around timing, how important it is in change and how I Have never seen any aspect of change skills refer to timing of a project manager of change agent be recognised because of their timing. Instead you see people rewarded and valued for “slogging on regardless”, or, occasionally, being lucky. So why not?

Recently, on TV programme about the science of sport the presenter demonstrated that for a professional sportsman (in this case, a golfer and a baseball player) if their timing was even minutely off, their performance (distance and accuracy) dropped by over 10%. Interestingly, their widely accepted warm up routines actually had a negative impact on their timing!

I have also recognised in business that to have an idea adopted, let alone implemented, decision makers  are heavily influenced by timing. By this I mean when in the planning cycle is it presented, what else is distracting your decision makers, what competition for resource is it facing, etc. The speed of decision making is frequently independent of the amount of preparatory work, the size/impact of the decision or the urgency of what is being decided. This is why so often it take a crisis, real, perceived  or manufactured, to extract any form of decision making.

Comedy is also well recognised as being a profession where success is heavily dependent on timing. That said it is not one size (or one timing) that fits all. On one of his tours Billy Connelly, the Scottish comedian, admitted that it was much easier playing large venues. Why? Well, because it took longer for the laughter to pass around it, thus giving him more time to prepare his next line/joke.

The aspect that brought this all to mind is the old, eternal cry for more communication, especially from the passive, critical portions of the population. By “passive, critical” I mean those who prefer  to be spoon-fed just what they want to know and not have to exert any energy either trying to learn about or assess the benefits and impact of a coming change; those who prefer to read selectively and recall information in order that they can find solace in complaining that they know nothing because no one has told them – often despite hard contrary evidence.

It struck me that effectively connecting with this portion of the community along with the rest is heavily dependent upon timing. This timing is in terms of relevance to the individual, receptivity in the broader audience and context in terms of wider happenings. If one’s timing is right the communication is absorbed and sticks, but if the timing is wrong it is hardly worth doing other than to build documentary evidence that you did, in fact, communicate and do “the right things”.

Indeed if one looks dispassionately at the work of many project managers, you can pick out those with a feel for timing, who understand the heartbeat of the organisation they are working in, and those who do not. I have not quantitative evidence to support this, but I would suggest that those with “timing” lead the projects that are perceived to be better managed (not always struggling against the current) and deliver more benefits.

As a closing thought for now, I would suggest that when one recruits or assesses a change professional one should look at their sense of timing and go for those with the best instinctive management of this – they are probably “luckier” than the rest.

On my part I am seriously considering taking a class in stand-up comedy, something that amuses my family just in its notion. To me there is nothing to lose, and if it helps me play to an audience even an iota better then it is probably worth it. 

Maybe we should add it into the standard set of project management training?